Israel, US Policies Aided Hamas Rise

In August 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the narrow coastal territory,
then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised it would make Israel safer.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed the move as "historic."

Israel had left behind a political vacuum, however. That, along with decisions
by Israel, the U.S. and Palestinian rivals inadvertently boosted the militant
Islamic group Hamas into power. Hamas is stronger than ever, and Israel's air
strikes risk bolstering it further, according to current and former U.S. officials,
diplomats and analysts.

Israeli leaders say the aim of their five-day-old military offensive in Gaza
is to crush Hamas's ability to fire rockets into southern Israeli cities. U.S.
analysts warn of collateral damage, however, that would further weaken Mahmoud
Abbas, the secular Palestinian president who's committed to an eventual peace
deal with Israel.

While Israel already has destroyed much of Hamas's infrastructure, "I
don't see how this changes the fundamental balance of power" in the Palestinian
areas, said Aaron David Miller, who advised six secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli
negotiations.

"Hamas is already relevant in a way that undermines Abbas's fecklessness,"
said Miller, who's now a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars in Washington.

Said an Arab diplomat: "The only way to weaken Hamas is politically,"
rather than via military force.

A senior Israeli diplomat acknowledged that Hamas had deliberately goaded Israel
into a military strike to boost the group's credentials as a front-line force
against Israel. With Israeli citizens under attack, Israel had to act in order
to not look weak, he said, particularly in the face of a threat from Lebanon-based
Hezbollah on its northern border and an election looming in February.

Both diplomats requested anonymity in order to speak more freely.

Sharon, who suffered a stroke in January 2006 that left him in a coma, had
argued that disengagement from Gaza would improve Israel's strategic position
and bolster "moderate forces" among the Palestinians "who want
to make the right choice."

Palestinian leaders, however, were never able, or willing, to begin building
their state in Gaza.

Even without its troops or the 9,000 Jewish settlers in place, Israel retained
a chokehold over the strip, controlling major land crossings into Israel, Gaza's
airspace and the waters off its Mediterranean seacoast.

Then, in January 2006, the Palestinians, with strong backing from the Bush
administration, held legislative elections. Over Israeli misgivings, Hamas -
which has questioned Israel's right to exist and which the U.S. and Israel consider
terrorist group - was allowed to participate.

Hamas won a majority of seats, benefiting from the perceived corruption and
incompetence of Abbas's Fatah faction.

"The United States should have anticipated a result it didn't like, and
it should have played it better," said Jon Alterman, of the Washington-based
Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Hamas has much more power now than it did three years ago," he said.

After the elections, the Bush administration began an effort to reverse the
results, McClatchy reported in 2007, but it failed to weaken the group or persuade
it to modify its hard-line views. As the months went on, Washington opposed
Arab efforts to form a Palestinian unity government and pressed Abbas to confront
Hamas.

In June 2007, after months of factional fighting, Hamas forces overran Gaza,
ousting Fatah's foreign-armed and trained security forces. The U.S. rounded
up diplomatic and financial support for Abbas, and Israel responded by clamping
down harder on Gaza.

An uneasy, Egyptian-mediated truce expired this month and Hamas began intensifying
its rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.

Scarred by their experience in the Lebanon war of 2006, when Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert's promise to eliminate Hezbollah proved to be a mirage,
Israeli leaders are offering narrow military goals for the Gaza operation.

The senior Israeli diplomat declined to outline a political endgame. He said
he hoped that Palestinians would compare life under Hamas in Gaza with the West
Bank, where economic conditions are much better and Palestinian security forces
are becoming increasingly capable.

Other observers warned that Hamas, should it survive the siege intact, could
end up emboldened.

"It's highly possible that this will be a rallying point for Hamas. I
believe it will weaken Mahmoud Abbas," said Steven Cook, a senior fellow
at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged
that despite investing political capital and diplomatic energy in recent years,
the U.S. "has not strengthened Fatah and (Abbas) in a very clear fashion."

The violence appears all but certain to complicate President-elect Barack Obama's
hopes of vigorous mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after he takes
office Jan. 20.

Rice argued recently that the Bush administration has improved the situation
after inheriting a violent Palestinian uprising in 2001. "We have left
this in a much better place," she said in an interview with Agence France
Presse on Dec. 22. Five days later, Israel launched its offensive.